Murderers in Riverclan V.3 [welcome back!]

[web.]

Deepwater - I

(1/9)

[twistedm0th]

Venomstar stretched out her limbs, blinking the sleep from her eyes and allowing the rays of sunlight to enter. The light filtered through the den's entrance. As she prepared to exit the den, she heard a yowl coming from outside the camp. Although she couldn't make out the words, she could feel the emotions in the cry; despair, pain, grief, fury. She quickly darted out of her den and through the camp, running towards the place where she'd heard the voice.

Her eyes widened as she saw her daughter's frozen, bloodied body among the disturbed snow. She turned her head to both sides, stumbling backwards as she spotted Troutleaf. "Mosswish... she... Stormpaw..." Her eyes fixed back on Troutleaf, and the leader narrowed her eyes at him. "What happened here?!" she demanded, her voice filled with the same emotions as the other's.

[Voting Deepwater]

[flightoftheowl]

Troutleaf heard quickly thudding paws drawing near, so he shakily got to his feet. As he turned, Venomstar, his mother, raced up. Watching the horror and grief bloom across her face somehow made his heart hurt worse; he hadn't even thought that was possible... "Mo- Venomstar," he quickly corrected himself, voice trembling with grief and a rising anger, "I... I don't know for sure. I just... came out here alone to look for chervil, since most everyone else was still asleep, and I saw Mosswish lying under the snow! And I don't know for sure, but... I suspect she was murdered. These wounds were made by a cat. Like Stormpaw's. He may have been right after all," he growled, rage quickly swelling in him like a tide. "Whoever did this, I swear on Silverpelt, I'll kill them myself!" He flexed his claws into the frozen ground, but as his eye caught his sister's still, cold form again, he quickly deflated again, and the grief overtook the anger once more. "Mosswish... We need to take her back to camp. We have to let the others know." He tried to sound strong, and unperturbed, but the trembling in his limbs likely gave him away. They were going to bury his sister today. His sister! And a clanmate was responsible? "What do we do, mom?" Troutleaf said in a small voice, like he was a kit again. He wished he was. He wished that this was all a horrible kit-dream, and that he could wake up in the nest again, curled up with his siblings and mother. "What do we do?"

[twistedm0th]

"Stormpaw may have been correct, just as you suspect... We can't leave her out here. Let's take her back now," Venomstar told her son, lifting Mosswish by her cold scruff. "What we do is we ask everyone else what they think. Two deaths is enough. We can't let this go on any longer." She dipped her head to him, pointing with her tail towards the spot of blood-soaked snow. The leader turned, the former deputy hanging from her jaws as she slowly padded back through the wetlands to the RiverClan camp. As she walked along, she tried to sort through the flood of emotions that was rushing over her. The melted snow from Mosswish's pelt soaked into hers as she struggled to keep going. "My deputy, my daughter is dead-- not only that, but she was murdered?" The way she was overcome with grief made her want to disappear into a hole with her remaining kits, to keep them safe from whatever was terrorizing the Clan. But she knew she couldn't. She had to take care of all of them, all of the Clan. She had to stay strong, for them.

[web.]

Deepwater - II

(2/9)

[flightoftheowl]

Troutleaf nodded. Venomstar was right- first, they had to let the clan know what happened, and then... Then, they had to do something. Someone had to pay for this! He grabbed Mosswish's lower back and lifted; his bad leg ached, but he ignored it. Alongside her, he helped carry her back to camp, heart turbulent with grief and anger. He heard her mutter something to herself through Mosswish's scruff, something about her daughter and murder. But he said nothing. She needed to grieve on her own, as he did; nothing he could say or do would take away his mother's pain, and the opposite was also true. Soon, they reached camp, where they gently set Mosswish's body down. At this point, Troutleaf's bad leg was throbbing after carrying all that weight, but he continued to ignore it. He could worry about that later. "I'm going to go fetch... the burial herbs," he said, barely able to keep his voice steady. "So that she doesn't stink of death." For if he could smell it, then the whole camp would likely be able to from their nests. He padded into his den, head down, and paused when he saw Breezefire's sleeping form. Fondness, pride and fear all mixed up in his heart- what if she was next? Or what if more of his family was lost? Even the thought of losing another clanmate to a traitor among them made furious rage well in his heart. He padded past her and began pulling the burial herbs out of his stores. Once he'd smeared Mosswish's fur with them... Well, it'd be time to rouse the clan. And time to look for the guilty. An ugly memory arose in his head, just from this morning- Deepwater's tail, disappearing into the den. What if...?

[breezey]

Breezefire could recognize her mentor's voice from anywhere. "Troutleaf, I'm so sorry that I overslept again." the she-cat said, dipping her head. "Do you need help? What do you need to get? I can get it for you if you want me to." she said, trying to make up for her mistake. The look on his mentor's face was the same as the time Stormpaw died, sad, solemn and fearful. "Is there something wrong that happened?" Breezefire asked. Did something as wrong as Stormpaw's death happen?

((Deepwater))

[web.]

Deepwater - III

(3/9)
Votes will be closing around 10:00 PM Pacific Time. However, if not enough votes have been given, I will extend the time.

[flightoftheowl]

Troutleaf turned upon hearing his sleepy apprentice's voice, smiling, though wanly. He tried not to show the anger and sorrow and fear that was churning in his heart, but he wasn't sure how successful he was. "Glad to see you awake," he said kindly, with a slight purr, though it was tinged with his melancholy. "Sleeping in's nothing to worry about! I just was going looking for some chervil... but..." The medicine cat flexed his claws in the dry soil of the medicine den's floor. "I found Mosswish, dead in the snow. She was murdered," he growled. "And I'm fairly certain now that Stormpaw wasn't just confused. There's a cat- in this clan, no less- who's trying to destroy us from the inside. Who wants Riverclan to fall apart. And I already have a suspect, he added silently- but he would voice his suspicions when more of the clan had gathered together. Deepwater had never previously shown malice, but... Why had the tom been out, if not on a dawn patrol? If Mosswish was missing, why hadn't he said anything, given the recent death of Stormpaw within their territory? Something about his behavior just didn't add up, and Troutleaf was becoming more certain by the minute that he smelled a rat... "Could you- help me chew up burial herbs for Mosswish?" the small tom meowed, a slight hitch in his voice. It was going to be hard, preparing his sister for burial- but if his wonderful apprentice was by his side, things might be just a little bit easier.

[22tabby]

FireFeather has been sitting in the clearing when MossWishs body was carried back into the camp. FireFeather felt himself staring for a long while, before actually processing what he was looking at. No that wasn’t sleepiness playing tricks on him, that... that was a dead cat.
He took a few paces forward to sniff her body, and he felt himself growing as cold as she was.
He already couldn’t understand why any cat would have hurt his poor StormPaw, but now... he shook himself. This couldn’t be right, could it?
“Who found her? Do you know who... killed her? Who killed my StormPaw..?” Tears came to his eyes and he felt himself shaking slightly. Part of him still refused to believe that this was real. That cats were dead. Dying.

((DeepWater))